K.F. Zuzulo Custom Writings

On Location

Follow along with Bethany O'Brien as she
embarks on a journey of ancient intrigue and self-discovery. Her
destination is a confrontation with Zubis, the powerful djinni from her
past who is A Genie in the House of Saud. The information provided here has been gleaned from a variety of sources that are referenced below for your own travels.

Washington, DC

Bethany
O'Brien seeks modern career success in the nation's capital, as an
editor and reporter. She travels by Metro every day from her apartment
in the northwest section of the District to her job in the National
Press Building. The neoclassic design of the District appeals to
Bethany's eye and appeases her soul. She soon learns that it is not
just the familiar architecture that infiltrates her memories.

Designed as an open network of boulevards and
generous vistas and named for the first president, Washington was built
on ten acres surrounding the Potomac River, beginning in 1790. Until
the completion of Washington, Philadelphia was the young nation's
capital city. Maryland abuts three sides of Washington, with Virginia
on the fourth. Land on the Virginia side was returned to Washington in
1834, extending the size of the capital and setting it firmly between
North and South. When it was reorganized with adjacent Georgetown,
Washington became coextensive with the District of Columbia and
encompassed 61 square acres.

With the small tax base of its mostly
economically challenged citizenry, and unable to tax federal property,
Washington struggles with urban blight and crime. Unlike more
prosperous professionals and government employees who tend to live in
the surrounding suburbs of Virginia and Maryland, Bethany lives within
the confines of DC, in the eclectic neighborhood of Adams-Morgan. While
the metropolitan area has a population of four million, less than
one-sixth live in the District itself. Yet, tourism remains the major
industry for this national center, with half of all residents being
employed by the government.

There are a myriad of architectural and
historic sights contained in Washington, all within a few miles of each
other. Imagined and designed by William Thornton at the end of the
1700s, the Capitol Building is a neoclassic building of impressive
scale. This seat of the nation's government caps off the sweeping
esplanade of the Washington Mall, bordered by such imposing buildings as
the Smithsonian Institute and the Air and Space Museum. At the other
end of the Mall is the commanding obelisk of the Washington Monument and
the massive and stirring rendering of the 16th president in the Lincoln
Memorial. Every day on her way to work, Bethany glimpses the simple
and temple-like design of the White House, which was commissioned by
George Washington to Irish-born architect James Hoban in 1792.

It
is to an upscale neighborhood in the city of London, called Kensington,
that Bethany O’Brien briefly sojourns with Ahmad, before fleeing the
city for Italy. From the Tower of London, to Buckingham Palace, and Big
Ben, Picadilly Circus, and Trafalgar Square, London is recognized for a
variety of landmarks and monuments. But it is also her neighborhoods
and people that make this capital of the United Kingdom a diverse and
unique location. A trip along the tube (underground subway system) is
perhaps the most direct way to evoke images of places most British:
Charing Cross, Marble Arch, Bond Street, Covent Garden, Sloane Square,
St. James Park, Westminster, Earl’s Court, King’s Cross, and Kensington
High Street. Bethany can see this fashionable street from her hotel
window. Kensington High Street runs alongside Kensington Palace and
Gardens, the former residence of Princess Diana, just across from Royal
Albert Hall. The other end of the street encompasses hostels and
hotels, as well as luxury and bargain shopping.

The city of London has an official population
of 7.5 million and is the most populous city within city limits of the
European Union. The city’s metropolitan area claims some 12 to 14
million citizens. For over 2,000 years, London has been an important
factor in the shifting boundaries of Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, Norman,
Medieval and Renaissance Europe. For Bethany, it is a doorway to
Europe and the location that will challenge her understanding of who she
once was.

Bethany
and Derek Martin must venture to Urbino to apprehend the mysterious
copper vessel, now in the possession of Cort Riebling, a dealer in black
market antiquities. They will stay for only two nights before
departing abruptly for Cairo, prodded by the discovery of a gruesome
murder.

Divided into four provinces, Pesaro-Urbino to
the north, Ancona, Macerata and Ascoli Piceno to the south, the Marche
extends from the Adriatic coast in the east to the Sibillini Mountain
chain of the Appenines in the west. From north to south, the region is
characterized by gently rolling hills and fertile valleys that run east
to west from the sea to the mountains. Along these valleys, four-lane
highways connect the seaboard and the A14, the major north-south
highway, to the interior, making it possible to swim in the sea in the
morning and relax in the shade of an alpine forest in the afternoon. The
9,694 square kilometers of the Marche are populated with 2,120,000
people, mostly employed in the service and artisan industry.

Although there have been artifacts found on
Mount Conero dating 100,000 years ago, it wasn't until the ninth century
BC that a permanent settling of the Marche took place. The "Picenus," a
people of controversial origin, settled in the southern part of the
region having followed a sacred bird, a woodpecker (in Latin "picus"
thus the name "Picenus"). The 50 necropolis founded by the Picenus
clearly indicate that these people were divided into tribes, each
independently ruled and having its own language. The Picenus were unable
to form a political administration and continued to live in separate
city-states. Overpowered by the Galls and the Athenians in 395 BC, the
only remaining memory of these people is in the city of Ascoli Picenus
(renamed Ascoli Piceno after Italy's Unification).

In the 15th century, Duke Federico of
Montefeltro, a swashbuckling mercenary, refurbished Urbino into an early
model of the ideal Renaissance town. His palace was a study in early
Renaissance palazzi. The streets are cobbled; the roofs, terra-cotta;
the cuisine, lamb, rabbit, swine, and cheese. And, best of all, Urbino
remains relatively undiscovered.

In
the ancient city of Cairo, Bethany will finally confront her previous
incarnation as the Asima Uruk, the priestess called Lina. Nasira, a
member of the Veil of Thoth, guides Bethany and Derek through a vibrant
Cairo souk, or open-air market, and into a recreation of Egypt in the
time of Solomon.

Cairo, a mystical and bustling melange of
past and present, is the capital city of Egypt. This land in Northern
Africa borders the Mediterranean Sea, between Libya and the Gaza Strip,
and the Red Sea north of Sudan, and includes the Asian Sinai Peninsula.
Egypt is roughly three times the size of New Mexico and is in a time
zone that is seven hours ahead of Washington, DC. Ninety percent of
Egyptians are Muslims (mostly Sunni), nine percent are Coptic, and one
percent is Christian. Since the time of the Pharoahs, Egypt has
depended on the bounty of the Nile River flood basins to become one of
the world’s great civilizations.

Zubis
awaits Bethany at the royal palace in Riyadh. He is bound to remain
close to his copper vessel still held by the heir to the throne. It is
written in literary and mythologic sources that the djinn can speed over
land and across time to transmit themselves; as Zubis does when he
visits Bethany, first in Washington and later in Italy. But complete
physical freedom is not possible, as long as they are attached to their
vessels.

Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and
home to Islam's two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina. The king's
official title is the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. The modern
Saudi state was founded in 1932 by ABD AL-AZIZ bin Abd al-Rahman AL SAUD
(Ibn Saud) after a 30-year campaign to unify most of the Arabian
Peninsula. A male descendent of Ibn Saud, his son ABDALLAH bin Abd
al-Aziz, rules the country today as required by the country's 1992 Basic
Law.

Following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990,
Saudi Arabia accepted the Kuwaiti royal family and 400,000 refugees
while allowing Western and Arab troops to deploy on its soil for the
liberation of Kuwait the following year. The continuing presence of
foreign troops on Saudi soil after the liberation of Kuwait became a
source of tension between the royal family and the public until all
operational US troops left the country in 2003. Major terrorist attacks
in May and November 2003 spurred a strong campaign against domestic
terrorism and extremism.

King Abdallah has continued the cautious reform
program begun when he was crown prince. To promote increased political
participation, the government held elections nationwide from February
through April 2005 for half the members of 179 municipal councils. In
December 2005, King Abdallah completed the process by appointing the
remaining members of the advisory municipal councils. The country
remains a leading producer of oil and natural gas and holds
approximately 25 percent of the world's proven oil reserves. The
government continues to pursue economic reform and diversification,
particularly since Saudi Arabia's accession to the WTO in December 2005,
and promotes foreign investment in the kingdom. A burgeoning
population, aquifer depletion, and an economy largely dependent on
petroleum output and prices are all ongoing governmental concerns.

Riyadh is the capital of Saudi Arabia and seat
of the Kingdom. The name Riyadh is derived from the Arabic word meaning
a place of gardens and trees ("rawdah"). With many wadis (a former
water course, now dry) in the vicinity, Riyadh has been since antiquity a
fertile area set in the heartland of the Arabian peninsula. The city,
peopled by 4.7 million across its 600 square miles, is a testament to
the influx of oil money, sweeping modern architecture, and great
sweeping tracks of highways that seem to fly, like the legendary carpets
of this ancient place.

In
the final scene of A Genie in the House of Saud, a third copper vessel
is looted from Meda'in Saleh, where it has languished for 3,000 years.
Fatih, the rebel soldier who runs his hand over its oddly smooth surface
has no idea of the anger within.

The southern capital of a Nabatean trading
kingdom that flourished two millennia ago, Meda’in Saleh is
approximately 1,000 km northwest of Riyadh. Its northern sister city
Petra, the eerie location for the final scenes of the 1989 film “Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade,” is the centerpiece of neighboring Jordan's
tourist industry and attracts half a million people a year. Yet,
Meda’in Saleh remains still and abandoned, supposedly cursed with the
presence of djinn that hover over the 131 tombs, walls, towers, and
cisterns.

The 50 to 100 foreign tourists who visit this
site each year find ornate religious symbols that were chipped into the
sandstone 2,000 years ago; nearby volcanic mountains that are decorated
with the 10,000-year-old art of prehistoric hunters; a palm-filled
oasis; and an abandoned mudhouse village. For centuries, pilgrims
trekking south to Makkah would not approach the enclave and would even
turn their gazes from the cliff. In the 20th century, the kingdom's
religious scholars decreed that residents living close to the ancient
tombs should be relocated.